SURVEILLANCE

After the more experimental second album Headroom, FM produced a more conventional album with this third effort. Surveillance is a more worthy successor to the debut Black Noise, but it is nowhere near that album in overall quality. Its main problem is its unevenness. The album opener Rocket Roll is a downright embarrassment which does not bode well for the rest of the album, but Orion/Horizons is a fine piece of progressive Rock not unlike late 70's Camel in sound. It would have been much better to open the album with Orion and just leave Rocket Roll off the album, or at least relegate it to a less conspicuous position in the running order.

Shapes Of Things is a Yardbirds cover. While not bad as such, I find it a bit lame to include a cover song. But things are picked up again with Seventh Heaven, another strong number. Sofa Back reminds me of some of Steve Hackett's dark and intense instrumental solo numbers. Both Seventh Heaven and Sofa Back were played live and can be heard in live versions on the excellent live disc NEARFest 2006.

Overall, a decent album with several very good moments and some not so good moments dragging it down a bit.

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